


a seed once sown

by fleury



Category: Tiny Meat Gang (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, M/M, Magical Realism, flowers?? magic.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-02
Updated: 2019-12-02
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:54:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21647902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fleury/pseuds/fleury
Summary: The flowers Noel picks for his mother stop dying.
Relationships: Cody Ko/Noel Miller
Comments: 24
Kudos: 136





	a seed once sown

**Author's Note:**

> writing noel’s pov was such a surreal experience how do u legends do it......
> 
> title's from a gertrude jekyll quote!

Noel learns, at a very young age, that nothing is truly how it seems. For instance, the chocolate chips in cookies could very well be raisins. Or the puddle of raindrops that pools by the curb isn’t always just clear, pristine water. He knows how to go about things like this, he is old enough to figure it out on his own. 

But he is nine years old the first time he makes sprigs of flowers bloom from dry autumn grass and that is something he has never seen before. 

He falls, tripping over a rock lodged in the dirt, and the moment his hand scrapes the ground, tiny purple petals follow. The flowers themselves are not impressive. Really, they are something Noel sees practically everywhere through the summer months. 

But he’s wearing a knitted cap and there’s a scarf tied around his neck, and it’s cold out.

He runs home to his mother, carrying in the flowers he’d sparked to life in a tiny bouquet, slamming it down on the table excitedly. They smell like honey and the summer heat.

“Look what I did!” He cheers, the grin plastered across his face nearly painful. “They’re for you, ma, I did them all by myself.” 

His mother had been seated quietly on the couch, flipping through a book with a title that Noel still can’t quite read. But her eyes settle on the flowers with piqued interest, a amusement tugging at her lips.

“They’re beautiful, honey.” She scoops them up with care. His mother is always gentle in everything she does. “Where did you find them?” 

“I did them,” Noel says proudly.

She raises her eyebrows at him. “You _grew_ them?” 

Noel says, “That’s what I’m telling you,” and frowns at her. ”You don’t like them?”

“No, no, sweetie, I never said that,” his mother insists, her voice soft. She sets her book down. “How about we find somewhere to put these, huh? On display for everyone to see.” 

Noel runs along with her as she travels further into the house. He’s elated when she slips the flowers into a real vase, albeit small, but still bright and beautiful. 

Tall and proud, the flowers stand, and Noel loves them everyday until they begin to droop.

+

He continues bringing flowers for his mother. 

Each week, sitting on a patch of grass and squeezing his eyes shut, thinking hard, breathing slow, trying to replicate what he’s been able to do before. 

Each week, the weather turns colder. The world shifts to winter. The snow falls. The sun hides behind a menacing grey curtain. 

His mother asks, “where did you find these?” She is holding flowers, small but all the same as the ones Noel sees in the summer. They are pink.

Outside, the world is blindingly white. The trees are barren. He hadn’t tried to grow these ones, rather they’d poked through the snow and caught his eye. Noel carried them home lovingly, careful not to bend a single stem.

“The ground,” Noel says, polite. “Do you like them?” 

His mother’s expression doesn’t shift from the soft look she’s always wearing, with the faint crinkles adorning the corners of her eyes and the corners of her lips that remain quirked slightly upwards. 

She says, “how about we find a nice place to put these then?”

\+ 

He is walking home from school when he brushes the bark of a tree with his fingertips, the long branches hanging low over the sidewalk.

For a moment, there is nothing. But the same moment holds a shift. He stops and as if by coincidence, buds of green leaves begin to grow from the branch, unfurling and shivering in the breeze. 

Noel keeps walking. He looks over his shoulder, once, and the branch waves back at him. 

+

Middle school is the first time he does it to impress a girl. She has skin like cocoa butter and lashes that flutter against her cheeks while she’s gazing down at her work. She’s very pretty.

There is a garden up against the side of the school, one planted there by the Environment Club. It is nothing impressive, full of those tiny flowers Noel would bloom as a kid. There’s something so very childish about seeing them here. 

He shuts his eyes. He focuses. Warmth spreads all through his fingertips and when he opens his eyes, there’s a patch of tall white flowers with bundles of tiny petals. They have no name, not to him, but they are breathtaking. 

When he gives them to the girl, she smiles, mouth agape in surprise. She looks to Noel, to the flowers. “These are incredible, thank you.”

When her lips touch his cheek, Noel expects something. He feels nothing.

+

The flowers he picks for his mother stop dying. 

Noel will stand by their vase sometimes and admire them, each type of a different colour, complimentary to one another in their own way. They are a family. 

What really happens is Noel stops letting them die. 

His mother asks, two months into the smell of summer crowding their living room, “Have you been feeding these?” 

Noel has never purchased a mineral packet in his life. He knows better. “No, but I know dad’s got a soft spot for them.” 

She smiles and huffs out a quiet laugh.

They leave it at that.

\+ 

He moves out once he turns eighteen. 

Boston is not far from Toronto. It is cold in the winter and hot in the summer. It is a city crowded with cars, streets, and buildings that scratch the surface of the sky. 

His dorm is small, cramped, and he doesn’t have a roommate. There’s enough space to let leaves and flowers crawl across the walls. Enough to set potted plants along the windowsill. Through the day, he pulls his curtains back and lets the sunlight caress each and every petal.

At night, Noel will lay back and watch as he lets a plant stretch across the wall, letting it reach the ceiling and grow and grow and grow. 

He’s assigned a roommate the next year, and he doesn’t know how to let them die.

\+ 

Cody keeps to himself. He doesn’t ask very many questions. He’s friendly and polite. He’ll curl up on his bed after class and watch Netflix for hours until his eyes slip shut. 

There isn’t much conversation between them about many things, but Cody compliments his flowers. He says, “They really brighten up the place,” and Noel feels a swell of affection in his chest.

By the window, a succulent sways from side to side. 

+

Noel knows that, for the most part, Cody isn’t stupid. 

He knows how plants works, knows they can’t grow overnight, again, he isn’t stupid. 

That’s why one morning, while Noel is still barely clinging to sleep underneath the covers, he hears Cody yelp, “Holy shit!” And Noel immediately looks towards him.

Cody’s sitting at the edge of his bed. The wall on his side of the room is full of strings of leaves and petals, reaching for the ceiling. They are very proud. 

The room smells like his childhood home. Fragrant with the scent of honey and summer. 

“Oh,” Noel says, by means of some sort of explanation. 

Cody looks towards him. Waiting. “Dude.” 

“I didn’t know you were into gardening,” Noel says, and turns over in bed. 

“I’m _not_ , I didn’t do this. What the fuck, what the actual fuck.” 

“I don’t—I don’t know what to tell you, man,” Noel says. He hears Cody huff, but he doesn’t say much else after pulling the covers back over his head. 

So, yeah, that’s really when it starts.

+

Then, Cody knows. 

Cody sees Noel brush his hand against a patch of grass on campus and spark it full of life, blooming art. Cody sees him smile at a tree, only for it to wave back. Cody sees him pick a flower from the ground and watches it survive for days and days and. 

Cody knows. 

There isn’t much Noel has in terms of excuses. Nothing more than, “I just have two green thumbs.” Which does not work and will probably never work.

“How did it start?” Cody asks. He’s soft in a red hoodie, his back pressed to the headboard of Noel’s bed.

There is a laptop open on the sheets with papers completely unrelated to greenery scattered across the sheets. Cody was helping him with homework. He wants to keep doing that. He does not want to talk about this. 

“It kind of just. Did. I don’t know what it was.” 

Noel sees Cody watching him. His gaze feels heavy, almost clearly distinguishable from any other time Cody has looked at him. This time it’s intense, unavoidable. Noel’s face feels hot. 

“That’s amazing, you know that?” Cody reaches out for Noel’s hand, and Noel lets him. He swipes the pad of his finger overtop his skin, like he’s waiting for flowers to fall from his fingertips. “You’re amazing.”

Noel feels his throat click and he can barely swallow around it.

In the morning, Cody finds flowers underneath his pillowcase.

+

It snows that winter like the sky is falling

It’s hard to grow anything that isn’t immediately damaged by the fierce winds or the chilly weather. Everything is covered in a thick white blanket, layers of snow hiding the world from any sort of colour. The air is dry enough to suffocate, and Noel has to bundle up in layers and layers wherever he goes. 

Cody’s sitting next to him on a bench on campus. He says loves the weather, he’s somehow at peace when he’s freezing cold, and Noel doesn’t understand it at all. 

Cody tells him, “Calgary is the Arctic compared to this,” and Noel rolls his eyes. 

He smiles and leans in, head pressed to Noel’s shoulder, and Noel can feel his cheek through the layers of clothing. It’s warm, a brand against his skin. 

He doesn’t know how to move, how to react, he can feel his heart in his throat, but that’s the last thing he wants. Or, he thinks so. He thinks. 

They sit in a companionable silence, and Noel watches one of the trees not too far away. He lets his eyes slope over the branches, the way it shivers, and Noel feels pity. 

He blinks. Nothing. Nothing. 

The branches erupt with leaves. 

Cody jolts back. “Oh my god.”

Noel looks away and lets the leaves reverse into nothing, but he can’t fight the small smile on his face. 

“Learnt how to do that a while ago.” 

Cody laughs, bringing his gloved hands over his face. “Literally anyone could seen that. You need to be careful about this stuff.” 

Noel looks to him, amused. “So you’re concerned for me now, huh?” 

“Ugh,” Cody grunts. “You suck.” But he’s smiling and that’s really all Noel wanted.

+

“Did you know flower language is a thing?” Cody asks one night, spent from studying and lying limp on his bed. 

Noel opens his mouth to speak. Stops. “Of course I did,” he lies. 

Cody cranes his neck to look at him. He looks unconvinced. “Sure, buddy.” 

+

Noel likes Cody. 

He likes how bright his eyes get when Noel surprises him with flowers, or how he smiles at memories of his hometown, or how he waits just a little too long between haircuts.

Cody has these soft hands and these gentle words and Noel doesn’t think he could ever get enough of him. Not if he tried

He leaves amaryllis’ ties together with a bow on Cody’s nightstand because they symbolize _splendid beauty_. Two words on their own don’t do Cody much justice, but it’s something of an effort. 

Still, Noel swears he catches stars in his eyes the next time he sees him. And. He feels something.

+

The snow melts, the trees bud, and the ones on campus seem to bloom with leaves much faster than the ones anywhere else. Noel will never get better at acting surprised. 

Cody asks him, with a daisy tucked behind his ear, “do you have a favourite flower?” 

Noel thinks about it for a long while. He looks across their room at the greenery streaking the walls, the plants catching drops of sunlight by the window, and he shrugs. “I love them all equally,” he says. “That’s like asking a parent to pick their favourite kid.”

“I‘m the favourite,” Cody says, smiling.

“I‘m sure you are.” Noel grins at him. One of the leaves on the wall sways. “What about you? And don’t say roses, everyone says that.” 

Cody insists, “I wasn’t going to,” but Noel has no idea how much truth is actually in that. “I mean, uh, camellias are nice. Or do you not know what those are?” 

“Hey, I’m getting really good with names. There are just. A lot.” 

+

Noel does have to google camellias. Then his curiosity gets the best of him and he looks up the meanings, falling down a rabbit hole of the different colours and. They mean affection. They could’ve meant anything—yet, they mean _affection_. 

Noel leaves two camellia bushes outside the dorm in shades of red and pink and proud. 

+

The first thing Cody says when he gets in their room is, “you didn’t.” 

Noel grins from behind his laptop. “No, I didn’t.” 

“Unless there’s a gardener that works for this school that just happens to like camellias, you _did_.” 

“Did I?” 

Cody shakes his head, laughing down at his feet. He pauses, just briefly, and when he looks up he asks, “Do you, um. Do you know what they mean?” 

“Are you asking if I can speak flower?” Noel teases, but he can see the tops of Cody’s cheeks go pink. It’s a very pretty colour on him. 

“ _Noel_.” 

Noel swallows his pride. He stomps down the urge to make anymore jokes, the urge to cover this up when he’s gotten this far. He says, “I—know. I know what they mean.”

Cody smiles, quiet. It’s the sweetest thing. “Yeah?” 

Noel gets up and he gets close enough to touch a hand to Cody’s jaw. He hovers so, so near his lips. “Is this okay?” He asks. It’s somehow careful, collected, all as Noel’s heart is pounding in his ears. Over and over. 

Cody doesn’t nod, but when he leans in to kiss him, Noel thinks that’s much better of an answer than anything else could’ve been.


End file.
